The collection
is approved based on the revised materials provided by the agency
and is valid for 6 months only. Should GSA decide to continue use
the collection past the approved emergency request clearance time
period, it must resubmit to OMB under the normal PRA clearance
process.
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
08/31/2010
6 Months From Approved
1,200,000
0
0
1,666
0
0
0
0
0
The Open Government Citizen
Engagement is a response to the Open Government Directive, which
was issued on December 8, 2009 by the Director of OMB. This
directive asked that executive departments and agencies take
specific actions to implement the principles of transparency,
participation and collaboration, as set forth in the Presidents
January 21, 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.
GSA is creating an Open Government Citizen Engagement tool, an
online collaboration tool powered by IdeaScale, as one example of
methods for agencies to use in extensively engaging the public. The
Open Government Citizen Engagement will allow the public to weigh
in on their support for agency and public ideas, comments,
suggestions, data sets, and the like, and allow agencies to engage
with the public via Ratings, Rankings and Flaggings. The goal is to
allow the public to rate and rank open-ended, general questions,
comments and suggestions. Tools that allow rating, ranking and
flagging (for example, many blogs, ideation, challenge grant
platforms, and other social media tools) can be used across
government. This information collection request for an emergency
clearance is being submitted in order to fulfill the public
engagement aspects of the Open Government initiative, and to allow
all agencies to use this and similar rating, ranking, voting and
flagging tools in this exercise and other exercises and meet the
goals of Open Government.
The Open Government
Directive was issued on December 8, 2009 with tight deadlines of
45, 60, 90 and 120 days to meet various open government
requirements. For example, agencies must have an agency.gov/open
web page live by February 6 and include ways to engage the public
during creation of the agencys open government plan which must be
completed by April 7, 2010. An emergency clearance is necessary for
GSA and other agencies working under considerable time constraints
to meet the requirements of the Directive due to OIRAs
interpretation that the PRA applies to optional visitor
voting/ranking/rating/flagging feedback mechanisms. Some of the
innovative mechanisms agencies choose to increase public
participation and collaboration, as required by the directive, will
allow the public to vote for / against an idea or otherwise rate or
rank ideas and general comments and questions. Additional feedback
mechanisms will be deployed as the culture of Open Government
matures across agencies, and as visitor feedback and stakeholder
needs dictate. Therefore, this six-month emergency clearance
standard form ICR and a burden hour budget is submitted to the
Office of Management and Budget by GSA on behalf of all federal
agencies.
This is a request for a new
six-month emergency clearance ICR to allow agencies to participate
and collaborate with the public to meet the requirements and goals
of the Open Government Directive.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.